Comment by nilsbunger
4 years ago
Seems to me it would be better for Cloudflare to keep serving Kiwifarms, and cooperate with government requests for access logs / etc. Then at least our law enforcement would have data to help with finding threat actors.
The forum already deletes anything illegal (in the US) and hands out info to law-enforcement when asked.
The operator posted this on their Telegram: "Cloudflare's decision to block the site was done without any discussion. The message I've received is a vague suspension notice. The message from Matthew Prince is unclear. If there is any threat to life on the site, I have received no communication from any law enforcement."
That hints at the biggest problem with the oligopoly on public discourse.
If you have the power to remove someone's speech, only your side gets heard so you can make them look as bad as you want and they have little to no recourse.
That’s good to know. I’m missing how that argues against my point though.
Not going against your point, just that there is no need for Cloudflare to provide the government info on a site that already provides the government with info.
they did, but law enforcement were simply too slow.
> However, as the pressure campaign escalated, so did the rhetoric on the Kiwifarms site. Feeling attacked, users of the site became even more aggressive. Over the last two weeks, we have proactively reached out to law enforcement in multiple jurisdictions highlighting what we believe are potential criminal acts and imminent threats to human life that were posted to the site.
> Legal process > While law enforcement in these areas are working to investigate what we and others reported, unfortunately the process is moving more slowly than the escalating risk
>law enforcement were simply too slow
"too slow"
According to whom? Cloudflare? What would be an appropriate time for Cloudflare for law enforcement to respond? And to what threats?
You say "simply" but these are not simple questions.
Cloudflare can shut off service to anyone, sure, but in any other industry there would be some termination notice, right? Unless its something like terrorism, where LAW ENFORCEMENT sets the boundary, not the private company.
The obligation for a termination notice, time to cure any violations of terms, etc is something that would be in a contract you agree to. A service provider is able to have terms that allow them to cut you off instantly if they decide to put that in their terms - apparently, CloudFlare has terms like that.
Would I want my ISP or CDN to cut me off without notice? No. Do we know they actually cut KF off without notice? Also no - it's possible this is after they gave KF's operator time to respond. But also, I wouldn't operate a site like KiwiFarms, so I'm not terribly concerned about my CDN cutting me off for the same reason. If it became more of a widespread pattern with CF I would understand their customers getting nervous.
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I hope that law enforcement has already infiltrated the forum, it seems common sense, get them before they act.